Western Short StoryOne Way to McAlister's, or Manitou's Tipi Tom Sheehan

Western Short Story

“I’ll
tell you, son, that you can’t go any higher than McAlister’s in
Colorado, and you’ll go through hell to get there, and never on
your own, never without some kind of map.”

The
oldest man in the room, in The Chauncy Remney Saloon and House of
Good Taste and Better Scents, in the Colorado town of Munitions
Mount, had the soap box and nobody was about to take it away from
him. Some of them had waited, it seemed ages, for him to break down
and say where he had been for a whole year when he was many years
younger. Not one man ever heard a word out of him on the subject, but
there had been signs in the last few days that a dent had been made,
a chink found in his armor of silence. He was one of the two
mysteries that had occurred in this section of the Rockies, but the
mystery of where he had been that time was pale in comparison to the
other mystery, the capture and eventual disappearance of a huge army
ammunition train that had been taken in a night of ultra-darkness. In
20 years there had been no sign, word, or whisper about the fate of
Captain Nathan Wexler and each and every one of his men on that
assignment, bound to relieve Fort Dexter, under months of long siege
by Indians.

The
Chauncy Remney Saloon and House of Good Taste and Better Scents,
sitting like an ink blot in a map of the area, was a piece of the
Rockies that people on the east coast and the west coast and deep
into Texas had heard about in every trail camp and western saloon for
more than a thousand miles in some directions. Gone missing with the
army munitions were the hundred men on the delivery mission bound for
the foothills post of Fort Dexter, by this time, 20 years later,
looking like not much more than rotting wood, a single flag pole bare
of adornment, and so many stories that they could twist the hearts
and minds of normal men. All listeners to awed tales of the area knew
that The Chauncy Remney Saloon and House of Good Taste and Better
Scents was both heaven and hell in a single wrapper, the ladies
upstairs able to tell the most devious stories a man could imagine
about the failed mission. Often those stories superseded the intended
mission of visits upstairs.

All
this was known by the old man who was doing the talking and whose
name was Ship Hendry, Ship being no nickname but his regular born
name, and was called by most folks as Mountain Tooth. He was a
mystery to the day.

“You
know what I think,” one patron of the saloon said, “that he just
said ‘McAlister’s’ for the first time ever from his mouth.
Never so much as whispered it afore, not him, not Mountain Tooth
himself. First time ever, believe me, and I been here for all the
years since the happening.”

“I
never heard of no McAlister’s,” said another gent about as old as
the main talker who was keen enough to hear the whispers in the room.

“Its
real name is Shipolo,” Hendry said, “unless you want to call it
the tipi of Kitcki Manitou or Gitche Manitou, whatever the Indians
call him, but he’s the Great Spirit, the one and only Great Spirit.
That’s the best I can fix it for you, and the old Indians say the
only way to get there is a bridge up in them mountains called
Ekutsihimmiyo, connecting here and there. Like heaven and earth can
be connected, a bridge between Shipolo and Earth some of their elders
say is near Mount Rainer up there in Washington close on Canada and
others of ‘em say it ain’t real far from us as we sit here
drinking up all this booze in the cradle of the mountains.”

He
looked out the large front window showing a view of white-topped
peaks in the distance and lifted his empty glass in salute. One gent
at the counter nodded at the bartender and another glass was at the
speaker’s elbow in a few seconds.

Hendry
smiled his thanks at the bartender and then at the buyer, who just
happened to be an acknowledged acquaintance of long standing.

Managing
a laugh that could be interpreted many ways, Hendry said, “But I
always called the place McAlister’s ‘cause that’s the name of
the real mountain man who told me about it, just like I’m telling
you now. It’s easier to say. You know I can’t rightly say their
name of the place or that confounded bridge that really ain’t no
bridge, but sure is a way to Manitou’s Tipi, which is what Shipolo
is, as I said. I ain’t saying it’s closer to earth or heaven but
I’d ‘ve liked to have finished my days there, but it wasn’t my
calling to do so even though some of ‘em when they found out my
name was Ship took up a deep fondness for me.”

A
second old timer said, “You mean to tell me you been where White
Fox has been talking about for years with all them ladies waiting to
make new tribes to walk the whole earth?” White Fox was an old
Indian who had come out of the mountains with endless stories and had
become a “fort Indian” with few tribal ties.

“Well,
now, I can’t say what them ladies had for long-range plans, but I
knew what made ‘em giggle and call me Chief. And White Fox, from
what I hear, ain’t always throwing dust on the trail.”

Most
of the laughter came from older gents in the saloon, but one or two
younger gents raised their eyebrows and simply pointed overhead to
the second floor, and with a full and ready smile for those in the
know.

“Well,
Mountain Tooth, you ready to lead an expedition up to that
McAlister’s place, are you? Lots of us’d chip in for that long as
we get to make our visit.”

“You
missed off what I said. There ain’t no expedition, no bunch of
mountain men or cowpokes or miners going to get up in there ‘cause
a bunch can’t get in. It’s too tight, too long, too dark, too set
with smaller gods took up with weapons to protect the way. One man,
with good direction, might slip in there like I did. But no partners.
No pards of the saddle. No Mining diggers with all their gear. No
plain old explorers looking for newness.”

“So
why’re you telling us all this after all this time? Just making us
itchy? Making the dream bigger than what it’s been for a long time,
too long? You got something else on your mind, Mountain Tooth? You
ain’t in possession of knowledge about Captain Drexler, are you? Or
what happened to all his men? If nothing else, they ought to be
buried if we could find them and their remains. That’s only proper,
ain’t it?”

“I
can’t make it up there again, but I could give some younger man the
right way to get there, tell him right up front how tough it’s
bound to be, and if he makes it, he won’t get out of there for over
a year.”

For
much of his talk, Hendry kept alert to a young man in the back of the
room he had seen in action in a few situations, which aroused his
curiosity and his commendation. The young man was Oren Bandley,
part-time cowpoke, part time miner on his own claim, but no hit yet.

Hendry
had asked about the young man, and the livery owner said, “Bet a
dollar on that kid any day in the week, Mountain Tooth, and you get
it back plus some more. Works like a dog or a mule, no sass in his
body, does what he’s been told. My niece should have married him,
but she’s got the same luck I got and messed up already with the
wrong one. Course, she’ll never admit it.”

It
was enough for Hendry to go on, to bet on the Bandley boy, knowing
he’d pay attention to all details, do what he was told, or at least
do so to the best of his ability. “Ever see that boy in a tight
corner?” made the livery owner smile in a hurry.

“Frisco
Jimmy came in here one day, Mountain, and wanted only a paint and
picked one out the boy just brought in for the lady he was working
for. Frisco Jimmy says he wants the paint the boy has still got by
the reins. ‘He ain’t for let or money,’ the boy said, and
Frisco comes back like he’s in a corner and says, ‘Know who I am
kid?’ and the kid, like I first wished would keep his mouth shut,
says, ‘You’re flat on your ass with no gun in your hand and
looking awful foolish to anyone just happening to go by, like that
lady out there,’ and Frisco turns to look and the kid wallops him a
terrific shot on the side of the head and takes Frisco’s gun out of
the holster and tosses it up in the loft , and Frisco still on the
floor and don’t see a second of it, and no lady out there to boot,
all put on by the kid, who by the way wasn’t carrying a gun at the
time.”

“What
happened then?”

“Well,
it took Frisco about 10 minutes to wake hisself up and he finds no
gun and looks at the kid and said, ‘Where’s my gun?’ and the
kid says, ‘You go down to the saloon and wait for me and you can
tell folks I was fixing it for you and if you do anything else, you
ain’t going to be resting easy from now on. We agree on that?’
And Frisco, like his tail is you know where, nods and says okay.”

Hendry
recalled it all in a flash of an image and says, real loud to get the
attention of everybody in the saloon, “I’m willing to tell one
man how to get to McAlister on his own, that’s nobody else with
him, not a single other soul, but he’s got to follow orders, follow
my directions, do exactly as I say, or he ain’t ever coming back.
The one I pick has to agree to all of what I just said, don’t tell
anyone when he’s heading out, and don’t tell anybody when he gets
back, if he gets back, that’s just so no one can make his trail.”

He
kept looking at Oren Bandley who just happened to be looking back
with his mouth ajar like he was about to jump on the saddle right
then. Bandley said, “What does he get out of it all, the fellow you
pick to go up there to Manitou’s Tipi?”

“Well,”
smiled Hendry, “he’s bound to get a chance to make some new
tribes if he’s onto it.”

The
laughter was heavy, and lots of backslapping and old fellows daring
other old fellows to get up and go.

“Hey,
Smitty,” one old gent said to another gent across the room, “ain’t
you said you was ready for the Queen of Sheba she ever comes calling
on you?” And they all laughed again, as loud as ever as Smitty
yelled back, “That lady ain’t ever met the likes of me.”

And
one loud voice suddenly came across the room, over the top of the
laughing, like a ship’s captain or a wagon master making known the
orders of the day, “I’m him,” Oren Bandley said, standing tall,
eyes on fire, “I’m the one going up to McAlister’s.”

Hendry
had pegged him right from the start and, as the laughter quit as
quick as it had come, he said, “Seeing as you spoke up right fast,
Oren, and seeing you’re young enough and some good things has been
said about you, I pick you to go to McAlister’s, by yourself and
doing all like I said here in front of all these folks who’ll swear
to it amen.”

Smitty,
enjoying the talk and laughter and the whole impossible night, said
to his crony across the room, “Ain’t it like I said? Mountain’s
the best man with the best intentions among the lot of us.”

And
Mountain Tooth Hendry, all his plans coming the way he designed them,
capped off his evening by saying to the bartender, “Every man in
the house gets a drink on me and a toast for young Oren there,
outbound soon as possible on the adventure of his life.”

In
the early morning, birds of all kinds making noise, horses in all
corrals and at the livery adding their wake-up nickers and neighs,
Hendry had roused young Bandley from his sleep. “Son,” he said,
the sense of adventure caught up in him like the scent of a good
breakfast, “it’s time you got started before the town wakes up
and knows what you’re up to. You get yourself ready for the chance
of a lifetime and I’ll do whatever I can to help you out. But don’t
think any of this is going to be easy. You got a tough, rough road
ahead of you. Mark my word well, it’ll be as tough as any ever in
your mind.”

“What’s
so tough about riding up in the mountains?”

“Well,
for starters, son, you ain’t doing any riding except in the early
part. You’re plain going to walk as long as you can on this route.
There’s twists and there’s turns and you won’t make heads or
tails of ‘em unless you listen to me and do what I say.”

“I
can follow directions, but what will I be looking for? You know
something about the munitions train that I ought to know? Is that all
part of this?” And he relented and said, “What’s all this stuff
about tribe-spreading? That could be plumb interesting.” He laughed
as if he was only joking, but Hendry determined there was a real
curiosity abounding in the young man, his eyes and spirit confirming
the fact.

Hours
later, they were into the heart of a canyon looking to young Bandley
as if it was a dead-end canyon and no way out but back. The range of
mountain peaks had loomed in front of them in the morning sunlight
like tops of cone candy and both Hendry and Bandley knew they were
drawn to the mountains.

“What
do we do here?” Bandley said as he looked at nothing but imposing
walls rising straight up around him in a near circle.

“This
is where you get of your horse and go on foot, doing exactly what I
tell you, which is what was told to me by McAlister hisself when I
left here just like you’re going to do as soon as you stop asking
questions and I get through giving you proper directions you got to
listen to and remember or you ain’t coming back in a hurry.” He
sat his horse at attention, waiting for the young man to dismount.

Bandley,
getting off his horse, went to pull his rifle from the scabbard and
Hendry said, “Keep listening to me, son. Don’t forget a word I
say. I’ve said that enough times already to sound like an echo of
myself. No rifle. No pack but what you can carry in your pockets or
stuffed in your shirt. You can wear that pistol on your belt and best
be it for snakes and such, and you can carry this stick here as a
cane or to use as a torch when you really need it.” He handed the
young man a stout-looking stick.

“Do
I walk around here in circles?” Bandley said as he took the stick
and shook his head looking around all that appeared like prison walls
rising above him.

Hendry
slapped Bandley’s horse on the rump and the horse ran off.

“Come
down along this section, Oren, and push that stone there away from
the wall. You got to skinny through there behind it, but it’ll open
up, high enough for you to stand” ... and paused and added …
“most times. Go the way it looks open to you. Use a torch when you
have to. There’s some matches in the handle. Whenever you’re in
doubt when the route splits, always go left like you’re going away
from the mountain, but you ain’t. There’s only one place where
the route splits and you have to go right and that way is marked by
my sign, which you have to find by hand. Mine and McAlister’s sign
both together. Mine’s a plain old X and his is a T. Don’t ask me
what they mean, but both were easy to make in stone.”

“How
long’ll it take me to get where I’m going, which is another
question, too?”

“I
got no idea how long it’ll take you, Oren. I don’t know how long
it took McAlister either, but it took me two days and a lot of it on
my belly at times.”

“Tell
me what I’m going to find. Don’t you think I ought to know that?”

“Son,
if you find it, you ain’t going to leave any time in a hurry.
That’s a promise. And something else I got to tell you … you
won’t know most times in there if it’s day or night on your way
in. Maybe one or two times you can see overhead if it’s day because
you won’t really be in a tunnel, but a jumble of rocks thrown down
by good old Mother Nature blocking the way and leaving a way, if you
can read what she’s saying in that. Old McAlister knowed it and so
did I … after a bit of deep thinking.”

“You
keep wrapping things up in more mystery than I ever shook my head at,
Mountain” Bandley said, weighing the cudgel in his hands as if it
was also to be used as a weapon.

That
gesture made Hendry smile again, knowing he had picked the right man
to send up in there, to McAlister’s place, to Manitou’s tipi, to
heaven on Earth if there really was such a place. He realized as he
had a hundred other times that it was like a dream a person keeps
trying to bring back but only catches pieces of it in snatches. It
made him smile all over again, even the loss of something precious
but faded. For a moment he thought it was like a fighter getting
clobbered and knocked down and losing his senses and getting up and
going right back into the action, not knowing where he’d been for a
short while but sure it was elsewhere. Some things were worth the
trouble.

“Ain’t
no fun hanging around and worrying and getting full up of questions,”
Bandley said, “so I guess I better get going. Keep left except one
time. Use the torch for whatever. Look overhead when I can. And don’t
expect nothing else but something really worth all this talk.” He
laughed, slipped down into the hole in the canyon wall and was gone.

He
heard Hendry shove the rock back in place.

Oren
Bandley slipped through, squirmed, fidgeted, fought his way through
openings not usually for the likes of him. He met no snakes, but
heard an odd sound now and again, as though an echo was being made up
in a far corner or overhead. Once, only once, he saw light above him,
a thin ray of it that seemed to fall onto a smooth surface and was
sent down toward him.

He
measured time by what he had eaten, figuring the times his stomach
seemed to cry for food, his hardtack and dried beans and jerky
filling the hole in his stomach for those accountable hours between
chews, but he was never sure of day or night but the one time.

Sleep
had come several times along with a tiredness that grasped his whole
body, and he slept off the ground on shelves of rock each time he did
sleep. It was never a comfortable sleep, but did have small rewards
that provided a sense of renewed energy. He had dreams in each sleep,
and they seemed to focus on a group of papooses at the edge of a
stream. That did set his mind on fire.

Once
he got to a solid wall after a turn and went back the other way,
thinking it was the right turn he had to take, but found no signs. It
was much later that he thought he had taken another wrong turn, went
back, lit the torch and with gnarled and bruised hands found the
signs left by Hendry and McAlister. His fingers were stubby logs of
aches and pains and stiffness by this time, and his legs often
refused to allow him to stand upright at demand. He felt he was being
bent into a new shape.

More
than once he thought he was in a wild goose chase, sent off on a
fool’s errand by a man who was fixing up an old debt, paying off
some due. No matter how many times he tried, he could find no reason
why Hendry would send him on this trip out of spite or hatred or to
even a score on some deed that lay forgotten in the back of his mind.

But,
young, trying to recoup his energies all the time, he yet found
dispiriting senses coming over him. They kept talking to him, saying
what a fool he was, daring him to turn around and go back the way he
had come. But that was unthinkable, probably would be worse than the
way in.

In
such a pother, like an object being knocked back and forth, he was
squandering in a mess of possibilities, when a shaft of light came
upon him, accompanied by the sound of running water, and the sense of
lilacs filling the air. His spirits, suddenly in a leap, soared as he
heard the soft humming voice of a woman coming from past the flash of
light. Energy rammed into his legs, overcome the pains in his hands
and fingers and arms from incessant crawling in tight spaces, and the
stony feeling in his backbone disappeared as he heard the sweet tones
of a musical voice, inhaled again the scent of lilacs as fresh as any
aroma ever known in all his years.

Oren
Bandley stood up without a pain in his body, his mind as clear as it
would ever be, and he stepped into a swath of sunlight that came over
him like a spring morning out of the grass.

A
stream ran by him, the water in small twirls and currents, as it ran
upon stones that formed a path across it. On the other side, washing
clothes in the water, was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen,
an Indian maiden no older than he was, staring at him.

She
looked surprised, happy, and curious all at one time, but a smile
began filling up her face like the smile had no ending.

“Ah,”
she said, “my father sent you. The Old One back there told me my
father would send my man one day. I have waited here for six years,
since I am a woman, waiting for you. My mother waits for you, for
word of her husband who went to find a man for me, to come here, to
walk across the bridge called Ekutsihimmiyo, connecting there and
here, like heaven and earth are connected, a bridge between Shipolo
and Earth.”

Bandley
pointed to the stones set across the stream and said, “Is that the
bridge called Ekutsihimmiyo, connecting here and there. Like heaven
and earth can be connected, a bridge between Shipolo and Earth?”

“No,”
the beautiful maiden said, “that is it there, where you have just
walked. That is Ekutsihimmiyo. You have made the journey. I am here
for you. For 6 years I have been waiting for you. The Great Spirit
has sung his song for me at last. I am White Bird of the Lilac, and
you will be my man this very day. And my mother, Mountain Dove, and
my father, wherever he is, will rejoice.”

White
Bird took the hand of Oren Bandley and led him across the stones,
after he had tossed aside the cudgel and his gun belt, as she
suggested. “There is no need here, in Manitou’s Tipi, for such
things.”

She
pointed to a place behind him and another cudgel and another gun belt
lay on the ground. “Those are my father’s,” she said. “They
will be here forever, as will yours.”

White
Bird of the Lilac placed her cheek on the shoulder of Oren Bandley.
“From this very moment, I am your woman. I am your woman forever
and ever. It is like my mother belongs to my father for ever and
ever. They are one as we will be one no matter where we are in this
life. It is just like the Great Spirit Manitou told me, I have been
one man’s woman since the day I was born and I have waited all this
time for you. Now, come with me and see where my father was years
ago, here,” and she pointed over a mall rise into a most beautiful
valley snug in the mountains, “in Manitou’s Tipi, my home forever
and ever. Is it not beautiful?” She gestured again, a sweeping
gesture that encompassed wonders that hit Bandley like a ton of
stone.

He
saw grazing animals, lodges and teepees of all kinds and colors,
Indians in full dress, maidens in colors from the keenest rainbow,
warriors in pelts and skins and blue coats of a faded hue he knew
were army residue. It seemed a hundred children played in the
sunlight, or fished at the stream or watered and fed animals or sat
on a pile of logs telling stories to younger children. Couples walked
hand in hand, at times trailed by little ones.

“My
people, with the help of Manitou and McAlister, who were brothers by
the blooded knife, saved over a thousand lives when they stole the
whole shipment from a huge army ammunition train and Indian braves
and soldiers brought it in here piece by piece. It took them a whole
year, but none of it was ever used. Imagine that, a thousand lives on
both sides, and some of the soldiers are here yet, raising their
families, not going back to the horrors of war, to death and
destruction. Manitou says we will live here forever in peace. Peace
lives here in our midst. Peace fills us. Peace stays in place. Are
you not pleased, my man? White Dove of the Lilac is pleased that her
man has come across Ekutsihimmiyo to me, to us, to meet my mother, to
sit at the fire tonight with Manitou while the stars shine down on us
like you have never seen stars, even out on your grass on sleepless
nights. They shine their peace here on us, bringing messages from the
Great Spirit, saying journeys begin and end but we must make the
choosing on our own. You have made a journey to me.”

Awed
by all he saw, Bandley said, “Is this McCalister’s? Did I really
get to McCalister’s?”

Twenty
years later, long after Ship Mountain Tooth Hendry had died in a
buffalo stampede, and his remains brought to Munitions Mount for
proper burial, and numberless stories went on being told in The
Chauncy Remney Saloon and House of Good Taste and Better Scents,
about his being ‘”lost up in them mountains for a spell,” a
middle aged rancher came into town for a visit. He was a vibrant
looking blond-headed man, had a distinction about him that said “he
had been places,” and the assessment was not charitable but was an
honest one. And he looked familiar to some patrons who stared at him
for long moments.

The
visitor walked to the bar and ordered a shot and a beer. He told the
bartender he was from Tobacco Shelf, which was north a ways in the
same mountain range, and he admitted, after questioning, that he had
a ranch and a stable of horses back there at Tobacco Shelf that were
the envy of many riders in the region.

The
visitor chuckled as he told the story and his familiarity grew on a
few of the customers in The Chauncy Remney Saloon and House of Good
Taste and Better Scents. One of the patrons said, at the same time
the bartender said it, “Hey, ain’t you Oren Bandley who was lost
up in them mountains just like Mountain Tooth was?”

Every
person in the saloon at that moment knew the story about Mountain
Tooth Hendry and the kid he sent off on his own adventure, Oren
Bandley, gone from the area around Munitions Mount for years upon
years, feared dead in the mountains, out of sight and out of mind.

From
the far side of the room, off in a corner as if he had been forgotten
, an older gent said, “You goin’ to tell us anythin’ new?”
Sumpthin’ we ain’t heard yet. I get plain tired of old folks and
old tales. What’s new, sonny boy?” He slapped his thighs like he
was a dancer doing tricks on stage.

The
rustling and shuffling began in earnest around the room, curiosity
coming up in a hurry as though it had been buried too long in The
Chauncy Remney Saloon and House of Good Taste and Better Scents.

The
barkeep, evidently a good business man, set up another beer and shot
for the visitor now identified as Oren Bandley, lost man like
Mountain Tooth was, a pure legend standing right there in front of
him, in his bar. It was money rolling into the till.